Your ceiling fan isn't just for sticky summer days. This article originally appeared on goodhousekeeping.com

Typically, when you flip on your ceiling fan, you're hoping to beat sweltering temps in the summer. But there's a good reason to run a fan in the wintertime, too. It just requires one extra step: Reversing its direction from counterclockwise to clockwise.

"In the summer, a fan pushes air downward to create a wind-chill effect that makes you feel cool," says Rachel Rothman, technical and engineering director at the Good Housekeeping Institute. "But by reversing the motor in the winter, so it's now clockwise, the fan creates an updraft that actually pushes warm air near the ceiling back down."

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When you run the fan while you're in the room, you'll feel warmer for longer. As such, you can lower your thermostat (or, it just won't kick on as often) and save some cash on heating. Some reports say that you could reduce your bill by 10%, but it really depends on the temperature at which you keep your house, your home's insulation, what sort of fan you own, and other factors. And the annual cost of running fans at home is typically only $12 - $20, says Rothman, citing statistics from the EPA.

Many ceiling fan models have a button or switch that reverses the blades' spinning direction with just a press, so take a look your fan's mechanism to check off this easy task.